Moonbeams in the Lunar Eclipse
by TheDarkFlygon
Summary: There's one thing sure in Shun's mind as he escapes from his pursuers with his partner's wrist in his hand: he won't leave this place alone. [Mage AU, oneshot, obvious Peregrineship]


Saying his day has been absolute shit so far would be an understatement. In fact, he's sure he's not had such a shitty day in his life before: getting pursued by a bunch of bounty hunters, with feet bitten off by spells and wounds all over their bodies, tattered colourful outfits shredding little by little on the ground and in the air, really isn't something he's ever liked, or ever wanted to experience; but here they are, pursued by a bunch of crazies with their lives in their hands as they try to make it out without losing everything they've had.

For Shun, the only things he's ever gotten were his liberty, his sister, his best friend and Serena; and he's not intending on losing two of these now.

The streets of this city they don't know smother him softly, slowly, giving him this sense of dizziness from the oxygen running out of his lungs the deeper they get. He isn't familiar with that place, they've arrived there in a hurry because Ruri and Yuto went after an important lead in their hunt against those who chase and kill the Hybrids (reckless kids, he can't help thinking: they're Hybrids themselves, they're going to get themselves killed and nothing else), and he has no idea as to where they could go to take shelter until these people forget about them.

They're running out of everything. He barely has enough breathing and energy left to run in the streets like he's currently doing, enough mana to keep the hunters away, enough eyes to watch over Serena and make sure she doesn't get left behind in this urban labyrinth. The inside of his palm misses her warmth too much for him to give up on her. He may be clinging onto his sense of orientation more for her and their mission than for his own sake, at this point.

Shun spots a corner sunk in darkness next to his feet, yanking his hand back on Serena's forearm (who is nearer to him than he thought, she's faster than expected, that's finally something he can be relieved about, it's been a while), shrouding them in the shadows of the night and hoping their chasers don't spot her body illuminated by solitary moonlight beams suddenly disappearing by swiping to the right. He keeps a hand on her mouth just in case, yellow irises focused on the scene before them, ears on alert; until he can't hear anything but their breathing, hers muffled by his hand, his barely in control, footsteps vanishing into thin air.

He lets her go, watching her put her back against the wall to examine her injuries closer. Selena's palms start glowing in a feeble blue light, just enough for him to see her swollen left ankle and cuts all over her body and outfit, blood red and fabric red somewhat mixing in the dark of the night as they silently pray for nobody to come back until they'll be fine enough to get back to their feet and find shelter somewhere Ruri knows (she's waiting for them at the end of the maze, he knows it).

They're breathless, yet the echoing silence makes him uncomfortable. He has problems hearing her over his shallow breath, a hand pressed against the stab wound a billhook got on his abdomen, his second skin having ran out of mana on him way before they could have escaped from these vultures' claws. The thing is that he can still walk, still get out of here if he ignores the pain enough, if he focuses his mind on the job at hand. The issue relies not on him, but on the fact he cannot guarantee everyone around him is in the same condition. Who cares about a little blood and a few cuts when your legs can still get you somewhere safer, better?

It's in those moments that Shun regrets being a mere spell caster when he could have been much more; and he gets jealous of Ruri's healing powers until he remembers the pain it causes her. He misses her more than he envies her anyway: he's supposed to protect her, not the opposite way around.

"Are you good to go, Serena…?" He asks her with a dry mouth and a voice smelling like dizziness. Maybe he's lost more blood than he can remember from the attacks. The dark ground and lack of light makes it hard to judge how much of it he's spilled onto the ground with no hope to get it back.

"Leave without me," she tells him like she's dropping a canon ball right above his head, eyes cold but eyebrows frowned, and he knows that because his eyes have developed some kind of night vision. Not that anyone would have associated him with any form of light power; yet he was, somehow, some way, able to illuminate his path and see in the dark, when he had enough stamina left.

Right now, he feels like what little endurance he had left had come back full force, rage engulfing his nerves in a rush of adrenaline.

"What the hell are you saying?!" His voice rises in tone and volume, ignoring the walls amplifying the sounds bouncing amongst them, but her face doesn't change, none of her features bulge even slightly.

"Leave without me, Shun. I'll only slow you down. I'll be fine."

"Are you fucking with me?! How can you possibly tell me that when we've come so far together, when we're supposed to be a team?! We're even more than that, we're alone together in some wastelands neither of us knows, you're—"

"Listen to what I've got to say before screaming your head out, Kurosaki!"

Serena's sudden bite at his monologue stops him right in his tracks, stealing his speech away, the adrenaline skipping a beat and going straight for his twitching hands and head. He's furious, but silent now. That's the only thing it's done against him that he can account for.

That, and a lingering feeling of betrayal giving his heart frostbite burning, scorching at his insides' skin. His blood feels poisoned, he wonders if he's slipping into sceptic shock.

"Look at me! My ankle's busted, I've run out of mana to shoot things, and we're both bleeding. There's no point in risking dying here if it's just to get me out of this mess when I'm no use to you anymore. Get outta here before you can bleed out to death, that's all I want you to do! I'll only slow you down, so please," she retains a sob inside, the sob of the person who's seen the frontier between what is life and what isn't for the first time and couldn't get prepared for it (nobody could), "please leave without me, Shun!"

"…that's _bullshit_."

Serena's eyes grow wide, her mouth moving to say something only to stop midway through the process to do so, her face split between anger and surprise. In the end, she sniffles in her last few tears and stares right at him.

"I'm not leaving you in some dump because you can't walk properly or something. We'll get out of this _together_, even if we have to limp or drag ourselves on the _damn fucking floor_ for it to happen. That place's not safe, we need to get you to safety?"

"And what about you, Shun? Are you going to go ahead and back on your footsteps to avenge Ruri? Are you going to do that to me… to _all of us_ again?"

She has a point there; he can't tell himself otherwise.

"Are you kidding? I'm bleeding the fuck out. I'm not sure if I can even escape from this place alone, my vision's starting to swim if I move too quickly." He scoffs, at himself more than at her eventually useless remark. "It's dark as fuck around here and I don't want you to have some stupid death by hypothermia or something like that. It's either we die in this hole or we leave together. I won't abandon anyone else, not after almost losing Ruri once."

He takes her hands, wet from their clamminess and cold, in his as if that enforces his point (it doesn't, really, but her palms are warmer than his and he just wants to touch her, to feel her skin under her gloves while he still can).

"But we'll leave together, that much I want to promise. I can't promise it'll be smooth or fun, but I can promise we'll try our damn best to escape."

"You're strangely forward today," she ends up replying with a smirk, "but I like it. You should be like that more often."

"Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not."

They have a short moment of silence before Serena speaks up again.

"How do you plan to get us how out of there, though? It's not like I can properly walk anymore."

Before she can add anything else, he gives her his back, hands right above his pelvis, fingers twitching up. Communication has never been his forte, and Serena sure knows that, so he's trying to do something about that, even if it just ends up being terribly embarrassing for the both of them.

"Climb here."

"Shun, that's stupid, you're injured! You won't be able to—"

"Get on here before I force you to get there myself."

She sighs in exasperation and does as he says, his arms sticking her legs against his torso. He has troubles adapting his balance to the new weight on his back, especially when his knees have scrapped the ground before and when he's weakened already. Still, he pulls through and forces his legs to stay stable as he starts walking.

The heartbeat he feels next to his, too fast for a human in their right condition but still slower than his, is worth it. She has her arms wrapped around his shoulder blades, purple and red fabric brushing against his own outfit. He can't hope to use his wings when he's like this, with a human body over where they'd grow with a spell and retract when its effects would end, but it's fine. It's fine because they'll make it out of there, as long as they're together, as long as he can hear her ask him if he's fine or he'd need a break. In a way, Serena is the beam of clarity piercing through the night ocean laid before all of them, the one whose presence he needs the most right now. She's his partner and role model at the same time.

Because, if there's one thing Shun hopes to become someday, it's a beacon of light in the darkness.


End file.
